Magical Adventure
by Milady Montrose
Summary: Two-parter. Steven and Connie trek into a part of the woods near Empire City which do not appear on the map. They clash with one of the creatures there.
1. Chapter 1

Steven and Connie sauntered down the hill leading into the woods. Neither of them had ever been down this lane, despite its serenity and calmness. Steven supposed they had forgotten about it for that very reason. Connie had never heard of the place, even when Steven had told her it was on the map. Connie's eyes simply kept sliding over the place, until Steven pointed it out to her. Then, and only then, did she see.

Steven followed the path down into the forest. The trail was not clearly defined, and Steven's eyes were always on the map. So far things were going well.

"What do you think we'll see, Steven?" asked Connie. "Should we have brought Garnet along?"

Steven paused. "Nah. Nothing bad ever happens in the sunlight! In all the horror movies, the bad things only happen in the night." He made a scary face.

"Then we should get a move on!" said Connie. She made her face scary and dropped her voice. "Otherwise, we'll be trapped here at night…"

"Wooo…" said Steven, lips forming an O.

Laughing, the two pranced further into the forest. Steven eagerly showed Connie the changing map. "See, Connie! For every couple steps forward we take, the map changes by that amount!" Indeed, the ink from that area of the map snaked out, rewriting the map as the adventurers proceeded.

"We're having our very own magical adventure!" gasped Connie. With fresh enthusiasm, the two proceeded deeper into the forest. The forest began to grow darker, the brilliant sunlight becoming muted.

At around noon, when Steven began to grow hungry, a dot grew on the map, followed by an elegant drawing of a bridge. Fine cursive print read, " _Bridge_ ". Underneath, Old English lettering flowed into existence. Steven ignored it.

"We're coming to a bridge," noted Connie. "We can eat lunch on the other side." Steven agreed with her, nodding cheerily.

Soon they reached the bridge. The river lethargically flowed in its bed. In the middle of the river, mud choked the water, with clear water nearer to the banks. Lilly pads floated serenely atop the water, most with creamy white flowers in various stages of blooming. The bridge itself arched across the river, constructed of wood painted brilliant white. Even though the forest was not too gloomy, the paint was so bright, it stood out plainly against the background. A sign stood in front of the bridge, with a word on it, "Forboden-Inwudu".

Steven stared at it. "I think they misspelled 'Foreboding'," he remarked to Connie.

As the two began to cross, a little water snake poked its head out at them, flicking its tongue.

Steven stared at it, as they walked over the bridge. "Cute," he murmured. The snake ducked its head, and retreated underneath the water. The snake was replaced by a massive hand the size of Garnet's head. It grabbed Steven before he had the time to do anything but scream.


	2. Chapter 2

Connie yelled, whipping her head around. She saw Steven, grasped in a massive, muddy, six fingered hand. Unsheathing Rose's sword, Connie ran to defend Steven. She swung the sword at the hand of the Gem Monster, expecting it to POOF.

The sword did not cleave the Gem Monster easily, for it was no Gem Monster. Instead, the sword stuck halfway into the Monster's arm, above the elbow, slicing through muscle and skin, but sticking in bone. A slight bloodspray flew as the sword bit, and a small dribble bled out as the sword stuck. The arm yanked backwards, and the creature to which it belonged reared its head from the water, wailing in agony. The creature stood about eleven feet tall, with arms far longer than was proportional. The back was straight, the rest of the body well-formed but covered with water plants (lilies) and more black mud from the very bottom of the river. From the alligator-like snout of the creature came a scream, unearthly at first, but tapering off into a human's scream of pain.

As this happened, the creature's arm went limp, dropping Steven in the river. Steven summoned a bubble, and began to submerge. The sword went with the arm, yanking Connie over the bridge's edge. She shouted as she hit the surface of the river. Acting quickly, Connie braced her back against the creature, and kicked Steven's bubble. Steven bounced out of the river, onto the bank. Connie kicked off the creature, and swam quickly to shore. On the banks, Connie realized she did not have Rose's sword. Her head whipped around, lashing her neck with her hair.

The sword still ate into the arm of the troll (for a river troll it was), motionless in the middle of the river. The water lapped against the troll's head, submerging it. "C-connie!" yelped Steven. "Is it dead? It's not a Gem Monster, I heard it scream-"

A stream of bubbles burst and exploded on the river's surface, and soon the troll's head came out of the river. It slowly turned, to gaze with burning hatred, at Steven and Connie.

"That hurt," came the voice of the troll, low and gravelly.

Connie gasped, and yanked Steven up. The troll did not pursue, but stayed in the river.

"You tried to kill us!" yelled Connie.

"Kill you and eat you, like I'm supposed to," corrected the troll. Glowering, the troll started to recede into the river water.

"Wait! That's my mother's sword!" screamed Steven.

The troll stopped, its chin two feet above the water. "So?" asked the troll. "It's a sword, hurting me, in my arm. That's all I need to know." The troll's shoulder twitched, but if there was supposed to be an accompanying movement in the arm, it did not occur.

"Your arm…it looks like it really hurts…" began Steven uncertainly. He wanted to offer his healing tears and spit in exchange for the sword, but worried about how to begin that exchange. Not to mention, the troll might try to eat them again.

At his words, the troll's face twisted, slitted pupils constricting, eyelids retreating, corners of the mouth wrinkling as the teeth peeked out. "I have a sword in my-"

Connie leaped in, "I know that probably hurts-"

"Probably?" the troll barked, rising from the water. That was both a good thing and a bad thing.

"We wanna heal your arm!" interrupted Steven, his words tripping over Connie's.

"Yes! That's exactly what we'll do!" her eyes flicked to Steven. "Why?" she whispered.

"So it'll give us the sword," he whispered back.

Taking a few steps forward, Steven said, "If you let us heal your arm, will you give us the sword back?"

"How would you heal my arm?" asked the troll. Unbeknownst to the two children, the troll's arm, underneath the lancing pain, was completely numb. It would not move at all. The troll felt this, and was staving off panic. Not only was its arm numb, to heal, it would need to stay above water. That meant starvation for it, as no deer, bird, or anything else would venture near it.

"With spit!" said Steven brightly.

"Spit," repeated the troll.

"Yeah!" said Steven. "Watch!" He spat on his fingers, and smoothed it over two fresh scratches on his arm. They writhed, then knit together. "Ta da!" cheered Steven.

The troll's nictitating membrane flashed across its eyes. "I can't see that."

"Huh?"

"I can barely see _you_."

"Oh. Um, so what now?" asked Steven, fiddling with his feet.

The troll sighed, and buried its head in the soft grass banks, 50 feet away from Steven. Steven felt guilty, but Connie pulled him back a little.

"Why are you here, anyway? You don't look like thieves…"

"Why would we be thieves?" said Connie in consternation. "We're kids!"

The troll rolled its eyes. "You ignored the sign. I even heard you laugh at it."

"You mean that sign?" asked Steven, pointing at the sign besides the river.

The troll nodded. "Only thieves trespass on private property."

"Is that what the sign says?" asked Connie. "That's not even in English!"

"Yes it is. Old English," The troll snapped back.

"Ughhh!" Connie groaned.

It did not take long to clear up the misunderstanding. Apparently, the troll guarded the bridge. Over the bridge lay a beautiful house, in which a bunch of Old English pixies lived. They had been around for centuries, and had moved to this enchanted forest. There, they had erected a sign, and created the troll from clay.

"How did they do that?!" Steven practically shouted, stars glittering in his eyes.

"…Please don't interrupt…" said the troll, wincing as Connie tried to wrench out Rose's Sword.

But at any rate, the pixies had not been out of the forest since they arrived, and no-one expected two humans to enter the woods.

"Normally Gems and Gem Monsters don't come in," said the troll.

Connie gave a gasp. "Here it comes…" She dug her heels into the grass banks…

The troll gave a howl as Connie tumbled backward, the sword giving a wet _splurch_ as it came free of the troll's arm. Connie protected her head with her hands; the sword tumbled up the banks, away from all of them. Steven hastily gurgled with nasty pond water, imbuing it with healing properties, and sprayed it over the wound.

Connie, Steven, and the troll watched the wound. The deepest part, the cleaved bone, trembled as the pink water sank into it. The splinters of bone, embedded in the flesh, shot to their previous places, clicking back together like a jigsaw puzzle. The torn ligaments flopped into their previous places; the ragged edges of muscles puffed and became red, knitting together, covering the bone. The fat materialized again in the skin, the nerves shot across the arm, like a spiderweb. The blood vessels snaked through all levels of the regenerated organs, supplying the new tissue with blood. The troll ground its teeth as pain throbbed from its arm. Finally, the many layers of skin rolled over the raw muscles and fat; hair slowly grew from the healed arm, restoring it to its pervious state.

The troll flexed its arm. Huffing, the troll receded under the water. Steven and Connie watched it go, then hurried away from the area as fast as they could.

Back at the House, the Gems did not react as well as Steven had hoped.

"Did you say a TROLL?!" Pearl shrieked.


End file.
